Online Customer Service vs. Social Customer Service-What’s the Difference?

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What is the difference between online customer service and social customer service? For the longest time, I figured these two concepts were the same. They’re not. These two effective business strategies have overlapping similarities, but they are two separate plans. Online customer service is when a business accommodates customers though a customer service page, like a help page. In this instance, customers come to the business for help. For social customer service, businesses go to the customers to resolve customer issues or to reward customers for posting positive reviews. For ultimate success, you should implement both social customer service and online customer service plans so your customers feel essential to your business, resulting in happy customers and more revenue.

Online Customer Service

Online customer service is perfect for all businesses, especially if you sell products or run a service. Customers can email you, or look on the FAQ section of your online customer service page to receive instant information. Not all customers are unhappy. Nor are all customers overjoyed about your business. Some just have a quick question about your products or services. We must accommodate these customers with an online customer service page. A clean, helpful customer service page will make your customers shout with joy because of the limited hassle to obtain quick answers. However, we also must accommodate our satisfied and unsatisfied customers through social customer service interaction.

Social Customer Service

Social Customer service is when you search social media and review sites to find negative/positive comments, or questions about your business and responding to the poster. Social customer service is effective because consumers need closure when they have a poor experience. In fact, “93% of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media. 85% of which believe that the company should interact with their customers.” Customers also believe that most to all businesses should have active social network pages. Social network pages help customers understand your brand in the form of actual human beings, not just products and services. Companies create personalities through social media, and every customer wants to know they are interacting with a person, not just a computer. Oh, and social customer service is excellent for online reputation management.

Customer service is essential for every business. Based on the latest trends, if you have poor customer service, you could lose current and potential customers. No business can afford to lose money, and the easy way to avoid a poor reputation and gain more business is through interaction with your customers. When you interact with your customers online, they know that you care. Active customer service shows current and potential customers that you are an attentive company who wants to please their customers just as much as you want to please yourselves. Businesses who understand the impact customer service has on current and potential sales should expect an increase in revenue.